


times of torment, times of pain

by notquitepunkrock



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies), The Isle of the Lost Series - Melissa de la Cruz
Genre: Anastasia Tremaine Deserves Better, Angst, Bad Parenting, But in a bad way, Character Study, Child Abuse, Chronic Pain, Disney Villains A+ Parenting, Headcanon, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Internalized Homophobia, Isle of the Lost (Disney), King Beast Bashing, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Religious Conflict, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, United States of Auradon (Disney) Is Not Perfect, most of the characters in here are either going to be OCs, or OC versions of canon characters, we are picking and choosing canon here folks, you know how villains cant die on the isle?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2020-11-22 12:48:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 3,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20874461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notquitepunkrock/pseuds/notquitepunkrock
Summary: The United States of Auradon seems perfect only at first glance. It is not. The Isle seems like a reasonable system at first glance. It is not.A series of vignettes about the children of Auradon and the Isle.aka i had too much time on my hands and too many headcanons





	1. Zoya

**Author's Note:**

> hi hello, enjoy these angsty little things about my OCs - and my not-OCs who might as well be because I have stolen them from Disney and don't intend to give them back. they're mine, now, suckers. time for them to join the pain train.
> 
> chapter one is Zoya, daughter of Scar. her name allegedly means 'dawn' which i thought was applicable considering the affliction i've given the animal VKs. (also it sounds passably similar to Scar, in keeping with the weird Descendants naming convention of the children's names being similar to those of their parents.)

Zoya has heard tell of ancient wolf-men on the mainland, men who’d been cursed to turn into wolves in the middle of moon-brightened nights, whose curses were cured when Auradon was formed so many years before and all use magic was banned from its borders. She wishes she was one of those men, because at least then she would only have to experience the ripping, tearing, back-breaking pain once a month, instead of every night.

The magic of the barricade not only stole all magic, it stole her pride’s real forms from every daybreak, forcing them onto two legs, forcing their backs into painful straightening, forcing their bones to regularly reshift at dusk and dawn. The king had decided it would be easier to control the cursed pride if they were human for the daylight hours, but even he thought it too inhumane to force them out of their true forms for eternity. This was the compromise, this cruel trick of pain that serves as a punishment most severe for her father's crimes.

For those like her, those born on the Isle, they have never lived a single day without this horrid pain. 

She aches to live on the mainland, in the African wilds where she belongs, instead of among the hyenas and her small, mangled pride, in what little constitutes as their land. There is no room to stretch their legs here. Zoya does not know if entering Auradon would leave them two-legged or four, but she doesn’t care. Anything to stop their eternal punishment.

Her father is brutal to the young of his pride, is swift to dole out impermanent punishments just like the one he inflicted upon his brother. Zoya is not exempt from this fate; she is too fiery, too willing to snarl back. She has died more times than she can count.

In the dark of the night, during her sixteenth year, she takes the youngest of the pride, the weakest, the ones who fall and break under her father’s cruel glares, and together, they run. Their feline muscles ache under the strain to get as far as they can as fast as they can. By morning, they are in the marketplace, slinking into the dark with their teeth bared as they transform into human children. Their slitted pupils are the only giveaway that they are not so human after all.

Scar does not come for them more than to send a messenger warning them that to return to the plains on the far side of the Isle would mean doom. Zoya and her new pride are happy to comply.

Her only regret is that she will never see her mother again.


	2. Hyllus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hyllus, son of Hercules and Meg! (with brief cameo from his sister, Melantha). I know in book canon, there's a son of hercules named Herkie, but that's a dumb name, Hyllus it is. (also look at me ignoring canon here in regards to Hades lol)
> 
> Hyllus was actually a son of Heracles in the Greek myth, though his mother was Deianira, not Megara. Melantha, meanwhile, means "dark flower" or something along those lines, and felt appropriate for a child of Meg.

Hyllus is one of the only students at Auradon Prep who has actually seen battle. Monsters do not rest near Olympus, and for all that King Beast tries to control Hades,  _ someone  _ has to run the Underworld. The god cannot do much besides send a menagerie of beasts to attack his foes, but it is more than the other villains can do to their rivals. Someone has to beat the monsters back into their hellholes before they run loose in Auradon proper, and by virtue of history, it falls to the family of Hercules to do it.

Hyllus, like his father, is all thick, rippling muscle, with scars criss-crossing his back and biceps, and a brutality with his sword that gets him banned from the fencing team until he learns restraint at a mere twelve years old.

The problem with the sport is that Hyllus does not only fight to win; he fights to kill.

His sister is just as powerful, just as quick with a sword, and just as strong. She is a legend on the wrestling mat. (Melantha has always been better at restraint than her brother.) In many ways (too many ways) she is just like him. They've grown up half on Olympus and half in the mortal realm, not belonging to both, not at home in either, with only each other and the children of Pegasus as constant companions. When Melantha and Hyllus received summons to attend Auradon Prep, it was not a kindness - it is a form of control, an attempt to reign in these brutal heroes and appease the gods in the process. 

To Hyllus school is just another place that is not home. He rolls his eyes at the privileged royals who see themselves as inherently good. His mother’s razor smile is on his mind - it is not so simply black and white as that. Their swords are dulled by practice fights and competition, and have never bitten blood. 

Cynically, he hopes that for their sake, they never have to.


	3. Anthony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anthony Tremaine is a canon character whose story I have completely disregarded for the purposes of my own headcanons. his mother, Anastasia Tremaine, was the younger of Cinderella's "ugly" stepsisters - in the sequel movies, she finds herself a husband with a kind baker and is shown to be a much nicer person who regrets how she treated her stepsister in the past. i am under the firm belief that she does not deserve the Isle. in canon, Anthony was born on the Isle and is somewhere around the rotten four's age. that's not the case here.
> 
> his name means either "highly praiseworthy" or "priceless," both of which I find fitting for the son of Anastasia and her Baker

Anthony’s mother does not deserve her fate. Her crimes are barely real - she loved her mother, she believed her lies, she was young and stupid, she was manipulated, she was  _ ugly. _ Anthony’s mother is soft, and kind, had long since rejected her mother’s cruelty by the time she was shut away on the Isle.

Her stepsister had begged for her mercy, had begged that she be left alone. King Beast had not shown any kindness. 

Anthony is the oldest of the Isle’s children - he was not born there, but sent with his mother on the off chance that being born to a so-called Villain means that evil is in his blood. This was the King’s mistake. Anthony was not born wicked, but he grew into it by virtue of need. Someone needs to be the muscle in the unholy place that is his grandmother’s house, and it certainly will not be his cousins. His mother stiffens her shoulders and sheilds the children from harm, from her mother’s wrath and her sister’s disdain. She opens the salon as a safe place for them to work, and refuses to let them near her mother’s business. She does what she needs to do to keep them alive.

(There is a distant memory of a father who would be broken-hearted to see them turn into this. He pushes that memory aside for fear of breaking.)

There are three things that he lives to do - protect his mother, protect Dizzy, and protect himself. The others in his family can rot in hell for all he cares, if only this damned Isle would let them. When the Rotten Four are taken from the Isle, he is bitter. This is something that his cousin and his mother deserve, but of course, they are overlooked.

Anthony was a toddler when he was imprisoned for a crime he never committed, and the pain it hath wrought is damning. If he ever gets off the Isle, he will tear down the castle brick by brick until he meets the king. And then, there will be blood.


	4. Adelaide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adelaide is the daughter of Adella, one of Ariel's sisters. her name means "noble born" which is true, given that her mother is one of the the seven daughters of Triton, but mostly I chose it because it follows the naming conventions of Descendants.

Mermaids were not made to walk on land. 

Adelaide’s aunt was a rare case. Even now, Queen Ariel takes monthly potions for the pain in her legs, so that the feeling of pins and needles replacing the feeling of stepping on shards of glass. Adelaide doesn’t know how she does it; she endures this only for a few months out of the year, forced to attend Auradon Prep out of fear that to deny this request will be seen as an act of war. It was already bad enough that they continued to use magic in Atlantica. More resistance would draw too many eyes and pointed fingers. It is risk they cannot take.

Adelaide and her cousins attend the school, but it takes all of her energy to stay upright. This place is too far from the ocean for her liking. She cannot breathe here, without the salt in the air. Her lungs are not as strong as her gills. 

She spends as much time in the infirmary as she does in class. If she were mortal, perhaps she would have asthma, but instead it is just a case of a Fish Out Of Water Syndrome. At least if she had asthma, there would be a treatment. (And how terrible that they know that this is wrong, know that this is causing pain, to the point that there is a name for it, and yet it continues. That, especially, burns Adelaide to the core.)

Her aunt is lucky, to live so close to the sea. But even she still rarely ventures out of her husband’s kingdom, unless it is to return to Atlantica. It is too painful. Her nephews and nieces do not have that luxury. It hurts Adelaide’s mother, Adella, to see her children in pain. There is nothing she can do.

Adelaide must cause herself pain for the better of her kingdom. And so she will without complaint.


	5. Haemon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Descendants (books): Hades has a son named Hadie  
Descendants (movies): Mal is Hades' daughter  
me: ehhh or not
> 
> Haemon, son of Hades, is named after the character of the same name in Antigone. His name means "bloody" in Ancient Greek. In the original play, Haemon was Antigone's lover. When his father sentences Antigone to death, he ultimately takes his own life. It seemed an appropriate name origin for Hades' son.

Growing up with the God of the Underworld as your father is a special brand of fear. 

Where the other children of the Isle can be spared from a day’s wrath when their parents succeed in dealing them a fatal blow, for Haemon, to die is to be underneath Hades’ thumb. 

The funny part, really, is that Hades is not the worst parent on the Isle. Far from it, actually. He ensures his son is fed, is cared for, is educated. He had Pain and Panic and their disastrous children watch Haemon when he was young, serving as demonic babysitters and caretakers. There are few places on the Isle that Haemon cannot go, because even Maleficent must bow to a god; she runs the risk of torture before returning, gasping, to life each time she dies, should she claim otherwise. He has never been killed directly by his father’s hand, which is something that most Isle children cannot say. 

But when he  _ does _ die, then he is at his father’s mercy.

Then, he is punished for being stupid, for stepping out of line, for messing himself up. That is when, if they weren’t imprisoned, he would be turned into a pile of ash on the throne room floor. Haemon cannot die on the Isle, and Hades cannot kill him, but he can punish him in ways that no mortal could ever stand.

Haemon asked his mother, long before she went the way of the many gripped by insanity because of their imprisonment, why his father was so angry with him. Why it was his death that truly set him off, when the rest of the time, the sarcastic god merely viewed him through a thin veil of vague dislike and disinterest. 

“Because you remind him of your cousin,” she had answered, and then shushed him quickly before Hades’ all-hearing ears could catch wind of their conversation.

And this is fair - Haemon, like Hercules before him, is a demigod. He has an impressive amount of strength, though his powers truly lay in the skulls in his eyes, the flames on his head that cannot be doused even by the barrier, the razor sharp intellect and spit-fire tongue. He would have the trappings of a hero, if they were molded properly.

How unfortunate, then, that they were not.

And so, Haemon’s deaths are a reminder of yet another way that Hades failed - in his son’s own failings to stay alive, he sees that last drop of potion that kept his enemy just strong enough to overcome him. By entering his territory, and perhaps even moreso by being able to escape, Haemon is reminding Hades of the way that he has failed.

He cannot accept failure. And Haemon is, truly, his biggest mistake


	6. Amanda

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Amanda is the daughter of Roger and Anita Radcliffe. Her name means "worthy of being loved," which seems like a sentiment that Roger and Anita would like. Her brother Robert's name means "bright fame," and is very similar in both meaning and origin to their father's name. Riley's name means either "wood clearing" or "valiant," which I chose because it follows Descendants naming convention, and is a unisex name.
> 
> warning: a blink and you'll miss it reference to transphobia

Amanda Radcliffe wishes she attended a normal school. 

There is no real reason for her and her siblings to attend school at Auradon Prep. Their parents, despite facing down Cruella de Vil, were no royalty, were not heroes with titles to their names. But, for some reason, their small triumph has deemed the Radcliffe children good enough to attend a school that their friends back home could only dream of.

Amanda doesn’t think that’s fair. But then, nothing really is.

She is constantly watching her back at Auradon Prep, ducking her head to avoid being seen. She knows that Rob and Riley do the same, sinking away from the judging eyes of their royal peers. 

The children of Auradon are meant to be paragons of goodness, but Amanda is far too familiar with the fact that they are not. By the time she turned fourteen, she’d had plenty of her painfully expensive skirts - skirts bought by parents with meager salaries, to help her fit in with her schoolmates - ruined by those perfect princesses with their creully laughing eyes. She knows that Rob steers clear of the Tourney field for a reason, barricading himself in practice rooms that only their music teacher can open. She knows that Riley pretends to be someone he is not to keep up appearances. Nothing hurts her more than watching her youngest brother force on a skirt and a smile in front of his peers.

The part that hurts most is that it’s all for appearances. Amanda’s parents see no monetary compensation for their supposed heroics. Their  _ dogs _ are on the Council of Sidekicks, but her parents see no upward mobility or council seats themselves. Her father is a music teacher at the public school two blocks from their house, her mother teaches English; they are no heroes.

Amanda does not belong at Auradon Prep. Her presence there is just another one of King Beast’s mindless cruelties. 


	7. Harry and Jace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jace and Harry Badun are the canon children of Jasper Badun and his brother, Horace, Cruella's minions in 101 Dalmatians. Their personalities, however, are my own doing.
> 
> Jace means "the Lord is salvation" and Harry means "ruler of a home." Neither of these meanings are particularly to-character, but I couldn't find anything else that I liked, so I kept them as is.

Harry and Jace’s parents had made a mistake. One that had cost them their freedom, that had nearly cost them their families, and had, occasionally, even cost them their lives.

“Always listen to de Vil,” they remind each night as they tuck their sons into bed. “The de Vils will always be smarter than you.”

It is this bedtime story that Harry and Jace carry with them. This story, and tales of dogs gone wild, barking mad (literally) and threatening to tear their fathers apart. They are, like Carlos and his cousin, encouraged to quake in fear at the sight of dogs, to run the other way, and to never, ever, try to steal one for its coat. 

Harry curls into himself easily. He ducks his head and scampers into the shadows when he hears either of the de Vil boys coming, only appearing from them when he is called. He is stupid, he is small, and he is dumb. He’s  _ supposed _ to cower in fear at the sight of the family that had employed his father so many years ago. At least, that is what he’d told him. And how could he not be all of those things, when he can’t even move his tongue to speak? When he has no marketable skills, not like Jace, and so he couldn’t even work for the family who has them under their employ.

Harry is forced to wander the streets searching for scraps, to sell himself and his soul in order to get what he and his cousin need to survive. He wonders if this was the fate their fathers had in mind when the boys were born. He doubts it.

Jace, on the other hand, is angry. His father and uncle had been pardoned for their crimes years before the Isle. The fact that they’d been locked up there anyway makes Jace curse the name of the king in the middle of the night. He is good at anger in the same way that Harry is good at anxiety, which is to say, very. He is the brains of the operation, same as his father was, and uses it to his advantage. No one can quite say no to Jace Badun.

At night, when there is no one around to hear them be weak, Jace tells his cousin that he is smarter than he thinks, that he is better than he assumes. At night, Harry pretends to believe it.


	8. Ning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hate how disney named Mulan and Shang's son "Li'l Shang." i hate it so much. so i've renamed him Li Ning (following the Chinese convention, wherein family name comes first, followed by the given name). As far as I can find, Ning means something along the lines of "peace" which seems like something that Shang and Mulan would want for their son. I also headcanon that Lonnie's real name is not actually Lonnie, and someone on Tumblr proposed the name Lan Ying. I don't remember what it mean, unfortunately, but I did prefer it to Lonnie.

Li Ning cannot remember the last time someone called him by his real name.

Ever since he was small, the other students at Auradon prep have called him Li’l Shang. It rankles, makes him flinch every time they say it. He has learned to suppress the flinching, but not by much. His mother tells him that it is meant as a compliment - they are comparing him to his father’s heroics. But really, it feels as though it is just another way that Auradon proper ignores them.

Ning’s name has meaning. His parents met in a time of war, and yet his name means peace, because that was what they hoped for their country. But try as he might, his classmates refused to stop calling him by their ridiculous nickname, and soon it spread to the teachers and staff. Now, if his sister refers to him as Ning, people are confused, baffled, have completely forgotten that his name isn’t Li’l Shang or even just Shang. 

(That’s nothing to speak of the frustration on her face when she became Lonnie Li instead of Li Lan Ying. She has not been called Lan Ying by anyone at school in years. She doesn’t bother to introduce herself that way, anymore. His heart aches at the knowledge.)

The worst part is, of course, that they don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. He’s heard the “it’s just a nickname” excuse more times than he can count. But to him, it  _ isn’t _ just a nickname.

To him, it is Auradon itself saying that he and his family will never belong.


	9. Claudine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> long time no see! 
> 
> Claudine Frollo retains her name from the books. It is a feminized version of her father, Claude Frollo's name, which means, as far as I can determine, "lame." It can also, however, mean "of St. Claudius." I certainly feel that Judge Frollo would be self-centered enough to name his child after himself. 
> 
> warnings for: homophobia, religion/religious abuse, and implications of intense child abuse

Claudine Frollo is not sure that she believes in God.

Of course, she would never say that in the presence of her father - the Judge is a cruel, cold man, and does not tolerate blasphemy in his home. He barely tolerates Claudine herself. He runs their home with an iron fist, and forces her to abide by his rules carefully. Claudine was raised not as a child, but as a slave. (This is, painfully, not unusual on the Isle. It still hurts to be seen as less than human by her own father.)

Her bedtime stories were filled with hellfire and damnation, with curses of the Romani woman who stole her father’s sanity and warnings to never, ever give in to sin. Her father speaks of her brother most cruelly - Quasimodo is the bastard child, damned at birth for his mother’s sins; her father, being a good and pious man, brought him in and brought him up, only to have it shoved back into his face.

It isn’t until she’s older that Claudine thinks to question the story. After all, if her father cannot love the daughter born to him, the one to whose mother he was once married, how could he love a child of sin like her brother?

She is forced to read the Bible every day, recites scripture under threat of punishment should she misspeak, kneels at an altar until her knees bruise and bleed. She speaks God’s word on the streets, sneers at the night-walkers and the homosexuals the way that she’s been taught. She speaks of salvation every time these sinners draw near.

But still, Claudine does not believe in God.

And it is not because of the presence of the fae on the Isle. It is not because of the false-god who claims to rule the afterlife and lives in a cave in the mountains with his son, nor because of a voodoo priest who speaks of his Friends on the Other Side and leads his daughters down his own sinful path. (And, oh, Claudine is well acquainted with Haemon and Freddie. Celia, she does not know well, but these three older children raised in religion have formed their own gang in the cracks of the Isle.)

No, she does not believe because, if there were a God, her father would still be in Hell where he belongs. Because, if God existed, then Claudine’s heart would not flutter when Freddie looked her way. Or perhaps, if there were a God, He would not let Claudine fall at her father’s hand each time she missteps in His name. Maybe because God should not let children suffer the way that He has let her suffer.

Her father claims that she suffers because she is bathed in sin, but Claudine knows nothing else. The Isle is sin-incarnate, and she will do what it takes to survive it, even if that means getting her immortal soul a little dirty. 

If there is a God, she thinks that maybe He understands.

**Author's Note:**

> fic title from Tura Lu by The Bollox
> 
> comments and kudos make me very happy x


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